Wearing the same dress for 5 days

I heard an interesting documentary on CBC Radio about a woman named Elizabeth Withey who wore the same black dress for a year.   I was intrigued.  The idea behind this wardrobe approach is that you have one less decision to make every day, not to mention simplifying your wardrobe.  Capsule wardrobes with 30 pieces (or less!) are all the rage.  As a fashionista, the idea of having to wear the same thing every day is scream inducing.    As shopping and clothes are my Achilles heel, I decided to try and wear the same thing for a week as a way to practice reusing and test the concept of making fewer decisions.  My husband discouraged me from this idea.   People will notice, he said, and think you’re weird.  Fortunately, people who know me already know that I am weird, so I decided that I could go ahead.

Like Elizabeth, I decided to choose a plain black dress as this had the most potential to be changed.

Being a fashionista meant that I had the change the look of the dress every day.  No way was I going to be stuck in a rut.

On Monday, I went with a classic look of the black dress with a jacket and chunky silver necklace.

On Tuesday, I covered up the dress with a buttoned up pink cardigan and scarf.  This made the dress look like a skirt and camouflaged it.

By Wednesday, I was starting to get a little tired of the dress. I dressed it up with a pearl studded belt and fur collar.  No one seemed to notice that I was wearing the same dress.  It felt like a dirty secret that I was keeping to myself.

I had seen many magazine articles where the fashion editors redesigned the look of a dress by putting a sweater on top of a dress.  This was the first time that I actually tried it.  I put a colorful black, red and cream turtleneck over the dress and voila!

It was very comfortable, but a little hot during the 5 a 7 that I attended that evening.

Finally Friday arrived.  I looked longingly at my jeans.  Turning my gaze back to my dress, I decided to make it casual with a jean jacket and a striped brown, beige and turquoise scarf and my favorite caramel leather boots.

And with that, the black dress week was over.

My conclusions after this 1 week experiment:

• Wearing the same dress every day is easy.  I didn’t have to think about what to wear, although I did have to plan washing it and drying it.
• Wearing the same dress is boring.  I quickly got tired of wearing the same dress and even though I consider myself a dress girl, I actually longed to wear pants.  I don’t know how people with capsule wardrobes do it.   I realize that I love to decide what to wear and this project took away some of that fun.
• No one really notices what you are wearing. I was certain that someone would come up to me and say, hey, I noticed that you’re wearing the same dress again.  No one did!  I think this observation surprised me the most.  Towards the end of the week, I did share with a few people what I was doing and several said to me, no, you weren’t wearing that dress yesterday.  They were shocked when I showed them the pictures.
• You really don’t need a lot of clothes.  Gasp!  I know, blasphemy right?  But I did realize that I have plenty of things that I enjoy wearing and I do not need any more clothes.  This should help me with my resolution not to shop for clothes for 52 weeks.

Daniela and Marie (who faithfully took my picture every day – thanks lovely ladies!), suggested that I keep the streak going or wear the same dress every other week.  Sorry girls, I’m not up for it!